Starting Over
by Ol' Man Winter
Summary: What happens when a new evil takes over the land? What will the people of Hyrule do under the new regime? Resist, escape, serve, or fight? Please reveiw- first fanfic
1. Prolouge

History of the 3rd Hylian Empire

Chiefly concerning the events in between Aeorin the Terrible's Rise to Power and the Establishment of the 1st Republic of Hyrule

The Rise

Little is known about Aeorin the Terrible (Also known as Aeorin the Cruel, Aeorin the Great) fast rise to power in Hyrule. Most of what we know is from the research of scholars at the Hyrule National Academy of Science and Natural History during the Aeorin Project (1965-1970), and Aeorin's personal documents. These allow us to narrow it down to two main theories.

Theory 1- A witch, shaman, etc. summoned Aeorin from another dimension or timeline (different documents suggest either one) into Hyrule. This theory has been lambasted by most of the scholars by stating the fact the last beings powerful enough were the Twin Rova (See- "Rise and Fall of the First Empire, or the Ocarina of Time", by Rofnava, 1995). But proponents of this theory use the one solid piece of evidence available- Aeorin himself. In his journal, he writes of "three crones… to which I am indebted". But, opponents say there could have been other reasons he used the services of a witch.

Theory 2- What this theory lacks in Aeorin's evidence, it makes up for with scientific evidence. This theory states that the fabric of time in space had a "blip" in it, and that it transported Aeorin from his time and location to Hyrule. This is supported by the Terminian Science and Astronomical Society, the only one in existence at the time of Aeorin. They state that their instruments discovered an inconsistency in time during that year, but the economic crises in Termina prevented them from investigating further.

All speculation I leave to the reader, but in any case, Aeorin appeared in Hyrule in the year 1425. He almost immediately began to plot his rise to power. To this end, he forged alliances with some of the creatures in Hyrule, almost exclusively with the remnants of the Bulblin tribes. But, unlike previous attempts at power by other dictators, most of his support came from humans, who were disenfranchised with the king and the class divisions.

After twenty years of gathering support, Aeorin decided to begin his campaign. Leading an army 45,000 men and 1,000 Bulblin strong, which he called the Dark Legion, he attacked the small, frontier village of Ordon, which had just, three days previously, declined a Royal Army garrison in the town. Luckily for the villagers, they had heard the Dark Legion long before it came within striking distance. 10 men and 7 women stayed behind while the rest made a break for it through the woods. They eventually made it into the Wildlands, and were found by the Wild Men, who took them in, along with the other refugees from the frontiers.

But back to the Battle of Ordon. Aeorin, obviously underestimating the courage of villagers saving their families from death, sent in a single contingent of 10 Bulblin archers and 25 human warriors to take the village. Most the east bank of Ordon was secured before arrow fire came from a store across the river. The Bulblins returned fire while the human infantry took cover in a two story house. The Bulblins , however, were at a disadvantage, and they all were killed quickly.

Seeing he was disadvantaged, the human commander sent a messenger back to Aeorin to inform him of the enemy's presence. Aeorin sent another 25 man unit, but with a catapult as well. He also ordered the rest of his army to kill the entire Bulblin contingent. This is the first example of Aeorin's "human race is the master race" ideal.

The catapult arrived at the battle and pounded the store into dust. But, the villagers escaped via an underground stairway, escaping in a direction that ended up in a cave in the Gerudo Desert. But in the meantime, Aeorin declared victory and sent his soldiers through Faron Woods towards Hyrule Field. It was a major defeat, though- he killed his entire contingent of Bulblin, and dragged down the morale of his troops. There was talk of desertion, though this never came about.

By this time, the Army of Hyrule was mobilized and moving towards Faron Woods. It was a massive force of 75,000 men, divided into 25,000 corps under one commander. But, it had one major flaw- the chain of command. Commander Cederine greatly admired Aeorin's ideals, and sent a secret message to him- If you attack our army and I discover the opportune moment, my corps will help you.

Three days later, the armies faced off, but they were both tired, so they pitched tents only 100 yards from each other and rested for the night. But the night would be cut short for many Hylian soldiers, as Aeorin had been brainstorming ideas for a quick and decisive victory. He found it in the "Shock and Awe", which involved breaking through enemy ranks with cavalry, then sending in infantry to finish off the disorganized foe.

At 3:00 a.m., the Dark Legion's cavalry charged the Hylian lines. The soldiers of that camp were just awakened by the sentry's trumpets when the cavalry hit. Slashing the troops stumbling out of their tents, the entire battle was going well until the cavalry hit a snag halfway through. The legendary Knights of Hyrule charged back at them. The well trained knights stopped the assault, allowing the rear guard to form up. This is where the death bell tolled for Hyrule- the rearguard was Cederine's Corps.

Aeorin, blissfully unaware of the impasse, sent his infantry to charge. The disorganized Hylian vanguard ran up the white flags when they heard the thundering of feet and screams of the Dark Legion. Cederine ran up a different flag to. His troops strapped poles to their backs with Aeorin's red and white flag, and fell upon the rear of the knights just as the Dark Legion hit their front. Amazingly, the Knights held out for another hour, then fought their way out, and escaped into the Gerudo Desert with 20 soldiers out of 200.

But, the Hylian army had been crushed. Aeorin and Cederine marched on Castle Town, where utter anarchy was reigning. The King had left with 10 members of the royal guard, the rest had thrown down their arms, and opened the gates and flew white flags. When Aeorin's army arrived, the people welcomed some semblance of order, and flew the red and white flags, threw confetti, and cheered their new master.

But in Aeorins moment of triumph, just as the Crown of Hyrule was in his grasp, he hit a snag. No one could lift up the crown, or open the throne room doors. When Aeorin appealed to the populace for help, and old crone stated "Only one of the royal family can wear the crown or open the throne room."

Bowing to tradition (Sources say he was considering making a new crown and blowing up the throne room doors with bombs), he declared himself Steward of Hyrule, and began his reign as the virtual dictator. But for those poor souls! Many frontiersmen and women fled with their children into the Wild Lands, where the Wild Men took them all in. A few soldiers who had escaped the battle retreated into the Desert, along with their families.

What their lives must have been like…


	2. Chapter 1: Home for now

We were a ragged troop of men who wandered in that forsaken land. Only twenty of us had escaped the slaughter that claimed our brethren. We were going to win the battle, had Cederine not betrayed us and switched camps. But, no use dwelling on the past. We will have plenty of time to do that in the Sacred Realm. And until we all succumbed to the desert sun, our order would live on.

Our horses we had abandoned to the vultures very early on. As we marched, we shed our armor, then our shields, then our swords. Our feet were tired, nigh unto falling off. The sun beat down on us, driving us into fits of raving, leading us into mirages of water. We would have continued like that had I not tripped and rolled down a dune.

At the bottom of that dune, the ground was wet. With my parched voice, I yelled to my comrades and started digging. After the first few handfuls, water began to fill up the hole I had made. I dipped my mouth into the small pool. Looking back on it, it was brackish, and had a stale taste. But when I drank it at that time, it tasted like mother's milk.

The other men came down and dug their own holes. After five minutes of slacking our thirst, one man heard a noise. "I can here footsteps," he declared. We strained our ears and heard it as well. Grandmaster Earon, being the least tired of us as he had refused to give up his horse till it died under him, stumbled up the dunes surrounding our oases. He took the spyglass he had kept for so long, and scanned the desert. He then jumped for joy.

"Your majesty, we're over here! Your majesty, come over here!" Waving his arms like one possessed, Earon continued to yell.

"He's finally cracked," said Mishenro, one of the younger knights. But then the reply came over the desert wind.

"Earon, we are coming!" From my coronation ceremony, if I could remember correctly, that _was_ the voice of the King.

A few minutes later, His Majesty, King Daphnes, appeared over the dune, looking as haggard as us. Behind him approached ten Royal Guards, also looking fatigued and thirsty. Slung across His Majesties back, I noticed a small bundle. It was the 3 year old Princess Zelda, crying for her mother. King Daphnes explained to us her mother had died on the journey.

As we sat around our life giving water source, one of the Royal Guards spotted some movement on one of the dunes. Earon took out his spyglass once again and looked.

"Goddesses, we are not alone here." He said, clicking the spyglass down to its storage position.

"What is it," asked King Daphnes as he tensed for a fight. I laughed at him inwardly. What would thirty-one tired men without weapons do against any attacker? But it was not an attacker. A young girl with red hair going below her waist walked up and bowed to Daphnes.

"Your Majesty, may I ask what brings you to the Desert?" Daphnes looked shocked.

"Have you not heard about Aeorin's invasion, girl? Hyrule has fallen." The girl looked shocked.

"So, you have no place to stay? Follow me, then." Dumbfounded, we all followed her away from our water. She walked so lightly on her feet compared to us slogging through the sand in our riding boots. Finally, she reached down into the sand and pulled at something. A trapdoor swung open, showing a stairway down. She motioned for us to follow, and went down.

"What you're about to see is something almost no one has seen for hundreds of years," she said as she pushed open a door at the end of the stairs. As we walked out, we stopped short and gaped in awe.

We were in the canyon that previously we thought no one had ever entered. But there were houses grander than those in Castle town carved into the canyon walls. Wells dipped buckets down into the river far below. But the thing that struck us odd is that there was no one there.

"Welcome to the valley." The girl said, as she entered a house carved into the wall. The Grandmaster, the King, and I (being curious) followed her in.

"What is your name, girl?" The girl smiled as she replied and bowed again.

"I have no name, your majesty. Aunt never gave me one. I was just 'girl' to her," She laughed," I guess you could call me No-name." The King looked shocked.

"No-name? How… interesting," he replied. "Well, No-name, could we stay here for… a while?" The girl looked ecstatic.

"Yes! Of course! After Aunt died last year, it's been terribly lonely. If I may ask, though, Your Majesty, what's that on your back?" No-name pointed at the bundle where the princess was. The King smiled at her curiosity.

"It's the princess, Zelda." No-name's eyes widened. Everyone knew it was every girls dream to be the princess of Hyrule.

"Oh, oh, oh…" She said, and then she fainted. We all laughed. The Grandmaster stood up and looked out the window.

"It appears we have found our own Hyrule, where Aeorin cannot touch us. But where we can touch Aeorin if we so choose, Goddesses willing. Yes, here we can regroup he we can and strike back at him as much as we can. But, I suppose, this is home. At least, for now.


	3. Chapter 2: To deal with refugees

Authors Notes: The reason I am churning out these chapters so quickly is because I had the first three in notebook form before I started writing on the computer. I am not doing them in a day.

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The moon rose full that night, I remember. Metternich predicted that change would happen to us. Hetman Grigory said that "Anything is change." For being Hetman, he did never believe of Metternich's predictions.

Early the next morning, young Misha came back late from hunting. I asked him what was going on, as I was on sentry duty. He breathlessly told me that he had encountered a group of some 50 Hylian's fleeing into our lands. I ordered him to report to Hetman Grigory. Within two minutes, Grigory, Misha, and two others rode off in the direction Misha had come from originally.

After a breathless hour, they returned, escorting a group of haggard looking Hylian citizens. What poor souls! Tired and dejected, they slumped into our camp. Their leaders disappeared with Grigory into his tent. The rest sat by our fires and ate the food we set out for them. They did not tell us anything.

I was relieved of sentry duty at noon. I chatted with my replacement for a few minutes, when a rider came into view along the horizon. We prepared to warn the clan, but were relieved when it was a fellow Hill Man. He wore the blue greatcoat of the Kosh.

"Is Hetman Grigory here?" He demanded in an official tone. I pointed at his tent. He dismounted automatically, and marched into the tent. After a few minutes, the Kosh's representative, Grigory, and the leaders of the Hylians appeared. Grigory began to give orders.

"Clansmen, dismantle the palisade, pitch the tents, and pack your horses. The Kosh has called an emergency meeting of all the clans about the recent events in Hyrule. Hurry!"

We obeyed. During my later travels in Hyrule, I discovered that our speed of moving from place to place is legendary. This was no exception.

The Hylians, still tired, were given horses. Horsemaster Dimitri shuddered and looked away as they rode them. Hill Men horses are spirited, and do not like to be reigned at all. Especially the filly my mare had just given birth to. Why I named it Epona, I will never now. A more annoying creature never lived.

For three days, we traveled across the hills. The barren winter had stripped them bare of vegetation, and a few feet of snow lay on the ground. When we made it to Zich, the city of the clans, we pitched our tents and set up our palisades. The tensions left over from the Clan Wars generations ago still hung thick in the air.

The next morning, the Hetman chose me and Misha to accompany him to the meeting. Misha refused to go, saying he had "business" to attend to. So, only Grigory and I went.

The Chambers of the Clans were in turmoil. The Kosh sat in the middle seat, letting them ramble on. His hair was white, and his face wrinkled, but he was the still the wisest man who ever lived among us.

Finally, after all Clans seated, he stood up. "Fellow Hill Men, I have called this emergency meeting about the recent Hylian coup, but the real reason is that the Hylians are flooding our lands with refugees. I sent a representative to the new leader, Aeorin, and he promised to close our borders, but the cursed rabble are everywhere in our rightful lands. That is why, fellow Hill Men, I have called this discussion- what to do about the Hylians! I yield the floor to propositions."

One man stood up. "Ship them back to Hyrule. That way we do not get accused of murdering them, but we can get rid of them before they ruin our way of life with their fences and towns."

Another stood. "Just kill them. Their Steward doesn't want them, we don't want them. Who will miss them?"

These seemed like the only two propositions available. I felt that they were both wrong. Just before the Kosh stood up to end the debate, I jumped up.

"Why don't we let them stay here? We are all descendants of townsmen. We came from the valleys of Hyrule and Termnia. These people are our distant cousins. But no matter how distant, a cousin is a cousin. Clan Laws state that to hurt a relative in any way is punishable by an equal crime. So, by that law, if we force the Hylians out, we will have to leave. If we kill them, we all must therefore die. Most of the Hylians who have fled here are young- they can be taught our ways. I yield the floor."

The Kosh then stood. "All for the aforementioned proposition say yea."

The entire floor rumbled with the shouted word.

"Any opposed?" Silence held the floor.

"Thank you. Session is adjourned."

As we left, Hetman Grigory smiled to himself, and then burst out laughing.

"What's so funny, Hetman?" I said.

"Me? You think me, Grigory Dieter, is your Hetman? That is truly the most hilarious thing I have ever heard." He then ripped off his badge of Hetmanship from his cap and stuck it in mine.

"From now on, Samakar Ophrachnick, you are the Hetman of our clan. You are more eloquent and wise then I will ever hope to be. When the clan hears of your argument, they will agree with me. In fact, you have a pretty good chance of becoming Kosh once he retires."

I couldn't believe my ears. He really made me, Samakar, the Clan Hetman? I had never dreamed of it. As we walked through Zich, I was embraced, congratulated, and lauded by any man who walked by.

I find it amazing a few words can change a man's standing in a few minutes.


End file.
